Hello forum,
This post will be a little long, pardon the long explanation but I think it is necessary to cover in details my fortunes and misfortunes in this hobby thus far. I first got attracted to marine life a while back but I really got into the hobby when one day I saw my friend dad's 200G FOWLR but I wanted to go beyond since I knew there was alot more that could be done with a fish tank. Soon after, I started researching and reading alot in different forums on how to properly setup an aquarium. needless to say, I told my friend that I was going to build a reef for less than $200 dollar (he laughed at me and said "go ahead and let me know how it goes", lol), soon after I started scouting for a used tank and equipment around town and the misfortunes began. My first tank was 55G with fish and corals, a few months later the tank crashed. I believe it crashed because of a heavy bio-load and not enough filtration in the system since the skimmer I had was a cheapo.
Furthermore, I later found a good deal on a 90G tank with stand and went for it. I transferred the fish, lr and corals to that tank; but to my demise ich broke out in the dt due to the introduction of a tang without proper QT. The ich killed most of the fish I had, at that moment so my morale was very low because I wanted a reef so back that I was neglecting alot of the signs the tank was giving me. I went from ich to algae to anything to everything a tank can get as far as pests.
Three years later I have upgraded to a 150g all glass tank. I have come to understand that I've made plenty of mistakes in this hobby as many of you have, but all of the bumps on the road were nothing but lessons into bettering my skills in the hobby. I went from buying cheap equipment to save money, to not QT'ing fish when bought from the lfs; at the end it all was nothing but a wasted of money. The lesson for me was that I initially had to invest in the right equipment even if it meant to spend more on equipment but with a guarantee that it would last me years to come. Another lesson was to be patient, I used to grab any fish from the lfs without doing proper investigation on the fish and ended up taking it out of the tank later or even worst, killing it. In the past three years I have spent thousands of dollars into getting a nice reef (long way from that $200 I thought I was going to spend originally... naive lol) and still working towards achieving that goal. Yes I admit, I have slacked in taking care of the tank and fish here and there due to life circumstances but lately I've been thinking that I must finish what I started three years ago, the perfect reef system.
Long story short, I have learned from my mistakes along the way and now I am ready to right them all. I recently took down my system due to an aiptasia outbreak that got out of control; restarting the system is giving me one last change to get my system to were it needs be. I started buying equipment I didn't have to accomplish a nice a healthy system for the fish and corals. I read and re-read many forums trying to figure out the best way to restart my tank and I came to the conclusion of an acid bath. I took this route because I had tried many different things to rid the aiptasia and nothing worked for me; I tried lime juice, vinegar, bbf, hot water, aiptasia-x and none of these methods worked for me, hence the acid bath.
Since this initial write-up 2 months has gone by and things are looking great. I kick started the DT with some clean lr (no aiptasia) and also used a SeaChem bacteria kit to speed up the bacteria colonization process. I have transferred all of the fish to the DT and they all look happy and healthy. At first they were a bit stressed out because I changed the aquascape and built 3 big island, they seem used to not much hiding place now.
Sorry for the long post, but here is what I currently have in the tank.
Equipment:
Reef Octopus SRO-3000INT skimmer
2x 200W heater
GFO reactor
Carbon reactor
Mag Drive 9.5 return pump
Jebao WP-15 (new)
JBJ ATO
2part BRS doser (new)
4 stage RODI unit
2x Taotronics LED fixture Dimmable
Aquatec CDP6800 buster pump
2x Koralia evo 1400 powerhead
T5 retro fit kit w/ 4 ATI blue+ bulb
Fish:
Purple tang
Powder blue tang
Starry blenny
Yellow tang
Swallow tail BF
Cleaner wrasse
Clown fish (matted)
Foxface
Midas Blenny
Flame Angel
4x peppermint shrimp (transferred from last tank, was fighting aiptasia)
questions:
1. What would be a good photo period cycle (hours a day)? from what time to what time should I run the cycle?I'm planning on having mostly LPS with a few SPS.
2. I have mostly big fish in the DT, what smaller fish would you recommend for the DT on the small scale?
Thank you in advance for reading this thread. I'll really appreciate any advice, comments or suggestions. Will post pictures of my setup as I go along.
Thank you.
This post will be a little long, pardon the long explanation but I think it is necessary to cover in details my fortunes and misfortunes in this hobby thus far. I first got attracted to marine life a while back but I really got into the hobby when one day I saw my friend dad's 200G FOWLR but I wanted to go beyond since I knew there was alot more that could be done with a fish tank. Soon after, I started researching and reading alot in different forums on how to properly setup an aquarium. needless to say, I told my friend that I was going to build a reef for less than $200 dollar (he laughed at me and said "go ahead and let me know how it goes", lol), soon after I started scouting for a used tank and equipment around town and the misfortunes began. My first tank was 55G with fish and corals, a few months later the tank crashed. I believe it crashed because of a heavy bio-load and not enough filtration in the system since the skimmer I had was a cheapo.
Furthermore, I later found a good deal on a 90G tank with stand and went for it. I transferred the fish, lr and corals to that tank; but to my demise ich broke out in the dt due to the introduction of a tang without proper QT. The ich killed most of the fish I had, at that moment so my morale was very low because I wanted a reef so back that I was neglecting alot of the signs the tank was giving me. I went from ich to algae to anything to everything a tank can get as far as pests.
Three years later I have upgraded to a 150g all glass tank. I have come to understand that I've made plenty of mistakes in this hobby as many of you have, but all of the bumps on the road were nothing but lessons into bettering my skills in the hobby. I went from buying cheap equipment to save money, to not QT'ing fish when bought from the lfs; at the end it all was nothing but a wasted of money. The lesson for me was that I initially had to invest in the right equipment even if it meant to spend more on equipment but with a guarantee that it would last me years to come. Another lesson was to be patient, I used to grab any fish from the lfs without doing proper investigation on the fish and ended up taking it out of the tank later or even worst, killing it. In the past three years I have spent thousands of dollars into getting a nice reef (long way from that $200 I thought I was going to spend originally... naive lol) and still working towards achieving that goal. Yes I admit, I have slacked in taking care of the tank and fish here and there due to life circumstances but lately I've been thinking that I must finish what I started three years ago, the perfect reef system.
Long story short, I have learned from my mistakes along the way and now I am ready to right them all. I recently took down my system due to an aiptasia outbreak that got out of control; restarting the system is giving me one last change to get my system to were it needs be. I started buying equipment I didn't have to accomplish a nice a healthy system for the fish and corals. I read and re-read many forums trying to figure out the best way to restart my tank and I came to the conclusion of an acid bath. I took this route because I had tried many different things to rid the aiptasia and nothing worked for me; I tried lime juice, vinegar, bbf, hot water, aiptasia-x and none of these methods worked for me, hence the acid bath.
Since this initial write-up 2 months has gone by and things are looking great. I kick started the DT with some clean lr (no aiptasia) and also used a SeaChem bacteria kit to speed up the bacteria colonization process. I have transferred all of the fish to the DT and they all look happy and healthy. At first they were a bit stressed out because I changed the aquascape and built 3 big island, they seem used to not much hiding place now.
Sorry for the long post, but here is what I currently have in the tank.
Equipment:
Reef Octopus SRO-3000INT skimmer
2x 200W heater
GFO reactor
Carbon reactor
Mag Drive 9.5 return pump
Jebao WP-15 (new)
JBJ ATO
2part BRS doser (new)
4 stage RODI unit
2x Taotronics LED fixture Dimmable
Aquatec CDP6800 buster pump
2x Koralia evo 1400 powerhead
T5 retro fit kit w/ 4 ATI blue+ bulb
Fish:
Purple tang
Powder blue tang
Starry blenny
Yellow tang
Swallow tail BF
Cleaner wrasse
Clown fish (matted)
Foxface
Midas Blenny
Flame Angel
4x peppermint shrimp (transferred from last tank, was fighting aiptasia)
questions:
1. What would be a good photo period cycle (hours a day)? from what time to what time should I run the cycle?I'm planning on having mostly LPS with a few SPS.
2. I have mostly big fish in the DT, what smaller fish would you recommend for the DT on the small scale?
Thank you in advance for reading this thread. I'll really appreciate any advice, comments or suggestions. Will post pictures of my setup as I go along.
Thank you.
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